New Delhi: Over 700 activists, academics, artists, advocates, writers, and dozens of people’s organisations from across India have written to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, expressing their outrage and deep dismay at the state government’s treatment of two women farmers’ leaders.
The letter signed by many prominent names including author Arundhati Roy, senior advocate Supreme Court of India Indira Jaising, lawyer and human rights and women’s rights activist Vrinda Grover, Kavita Srivastav, President of the PUCL, human rights and civil rights activists Teesta Setalvad and Harsh Mander, slams the Punjab government for allegedly beating and torturing the women farmers’ leaders.
“In particular, we are profoundly anguished and distressed at the brutal manner in which Harinder Bindu, the convenor of Mahila wing of farmer union BKU Ugrahan, and farmer leader, Paramjit Kaur Pithon, were targeted, beaten, and tortured, while peacefully gathering in support of the women teachers of Adarsh Senior Secondary School, Chouke (Bathinda District),” says the letter.
‘Police specifically targeted Harinder Bindu, a prominent women farmer leader’
It adds that teachers of the Adarsh Senior Secondary School have been sitting on dharna for more than two months, over unpaid salaries and illegal retrenchment of staff by the school management. The school, which operates under a public-private partnership, with 70% state government funding, has been in news for financial mismanagement, corruption and other malpractices, the letter says.
“A report of the three-member committee constituted by the deputy commissioner, Bhatinda, detailing school malpractices was submitted to the government but was neither made public nor acted upon,” says the letter.
The letter adds that on the early morning of April 5, as teachers protested at the school gate, the management called the police, who used force to disperse them. Thereafter, several teachers were arrested including a woman teacher with a 13-month-old baby.
The letter says that a few hours later, a delegation of Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta (Ugrahan) gathered near the local Gill Kalan Police Station in support of the teachers who were now sitting outside the police station demanding the release of their colleagues. Harinder Bindu and Paramjit Kaur Pithon were part of the delegation.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
